A Clear Lens

03/13/2018

3 Reasons to Give up Apologetics

by Roger Browning

I was researching opinions on the difference between apologetics and evangelism when I came across a website that explained it like this:

APOLOGETICS USUALLY REQUIRES SOME LEVEL OF INTELLECTUAL SOPHISTICATION.[I]

While I certainly believe intelligence and Christianity are complimentary,[ii] the idea that apologetics is for the intellectual is problematic when looking at 1 Pet 3:15: “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in you”. If apologetics is something all Christians should be prepared for then maybe ‘apologetics’ isn’t the only way.

Apologetics is Complicated

The first time I approached a church about teaching apologetics, I received an all too common response from the pastor: “We teach the Bible, we don’t need that.” As I listened to his sermon, I couldn’t help but see the irony in his appeals to missionary work. He said, “They will know you by your fruits”, a clear message from Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount. So the pastor wanted his congregation to go out and win hearts and minds for Christ… without providing any reasons!? Apologetics is clearly a piece of the endeavor but putting the term ‘apologetics’ on the mission appears to complicate the ask.

Most of us are already prepared to give a reason by simply sharing our testimony. Labeling it ‘apologetics’ only complicates evangelism…

Christians today are facing more challenges than ever. The Poached Egg exists to equip Christians to meet those challenges and be more confident in their faith and become more effective witnesses for Christ. If you find these articles and posts useful, please consider partnering with me in 2018 to continue this work that God has laid on my heart. As someone once said, the Gospel is free, but someone has to pay for the plumbing. You can become a monthly partner for just as little as $5 a month (that’s only $60 a year), the price of a gourmet cup of coffee. Special one time gifts are welcome and encouraged as well. Will you help?

03/09/2018

3 Reasons You’re Vital to the World of Ideas

by Mia Langford

It may be true, that men, who are mere mathematicians, have certain specific shortcomings, but that is not the fault of mathematics, for it is equally true of every other exclusive occupation. — Carl Friedrich Gauss

“So much of this is just so far above my head. I don’t think there would ever be much I could contribute.”

My heart sank. This beautiful, earnest elementary school teacher really thought she had nothing to give to the defense of truth. But apologetics is for everyone. As Christians we believe we have access to general and revealed truth, and this truth is accessible to all. Explain the world accurately; that’s the goal. To explain the world as accurately as possible, and to reach that same world as persuasively as possible, we need the entire world, with the varying perspectives, data set, experiences, and gifts it brings to the table.

Why? Let’s look at three reasons.

1.) Sometimes the emperor has no clothes.

We all know the story of the emperor’s new clothes by Hans Christian Anderson. The emperor was tricked by a tailor into wearing invisible clothes that ostensibly had the power to reveal the stupidity of any person who was not able to see them, for:

“The whole town knew about the cloth’s peculiar power, and all were impatient to find out how stupid their neighbors were.”

It took the candid chutzpah of a little child to shatter the ridiculous, widespread delusion that gripped an entire population…

Christians today are facing more challenges than ever. The Poached Egg exists to equip Christians to meet those challenges and be more confident in their faith and become more effective witnesses for Christ. If you find these articles and posts useful, please consider partnering with me in 2018 to continue this work that God has laid on my heart. As someone once said, the Gospel is free, but someone has to pay for the plumbing. You can become a monthly partner for just as little as $5 a month (that’s only $60 a year), the price of a gourmet cup of coffee. Special one time gifts are welcome and encouraged as well. Will you help?

“…even at this remote distance of time from the date of the Sacred Oracles, new evidences of their credibility and accuracy are continually coming to light. How much may yet remain, buried under barren mounds, or entombed in pyramids and catacombs, or hidden in the yet unexplored pages of some ancient literature…”

I didn’t know then how appropriate it would be to share that quote. In my article, I mentioned the 2015 discovery of the seal of King Hezekiah. As it turns out, near where King Hezekiah’s seal was found, another incredible archaeological find was revealed to the world at large: the seal of the Prophet Isaiah.

In February of this year, the Times of Israel reported that archaeologists most likely found the seal of the Prophet Isaiah. I say “most likely” because the seal is damaged and as such, missing a crucial letter, “aleph.” That letter would make the second word on the seal “prophet.” Because of that fact, there is no way to be 100% sure that is is the seal of the Prophet Isaiah. Plus, there is a debate on whether the title “prophet” would have been used at all.

That said, it still seems highly likely that it is the seal of the prophet Isaiah. Dr. Eliat Mazar pointed out the archaeological context in which the seal was found…

Christians today are facing more challenges than ever. The Poached Egg exists to equip Christians to meet those challenges and be more confident in their faith and become more effective witnesses for Christ. If you find these articles and posts useful, please consider partnering with me in 2018 to continue this work that God has laid on my heart. As someone once said, the Gospel is free, but someone has to pay for the plumbing. You can become a monthly partner for just as little as $5 a month (that’s only $60 a year), the price of a gourmet cup of coffee. Special one time gifts are welcome and encouraged as well. Will you help?

03/01/2018

If You Want to Share Your Faith Effectively, Do This First

by Nate Sala

There was a time when effective evangelism was as simple as sharing our testimony with someone or reminding them what the Bible says on a particular issue or even asking them to watch Billy Graham preach on TV. But these days are largely gone. Why? Because, back then, Christianity retained an inherited authority in moral and spiritual matters. Non-believers, who had decided to avoid church and reject following Jesus, still acknowledged this sense of authority over their lives.

Now, when a lot of Christians try to share their faith, folks clam up, fold their arms, and shut down. Or worse, they get angry and start arguing (even demonizing) the Christian for talking about their beliefs.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Christians must have a paradigm shift in their understanding of evangelism and apologetics. We have to understand our audience in order to engage them effectively. This means throwing out scripted speeches and asking questions to develop authentic relationship. In other words, we must adopt a First Date Evangelism approach.

I’m currently reading the writings of Mortimer Adler. If you haven’t read him, he’s an excellent thinker with a lot of helpful ideas about actively engaging literature as well as people. In his book How to Speak How to Listen he writes about the proper order of rhetoric in persuasion. The first step in communicating with someone in order to persuade them is — develop trust…

Christians today are facing more challenges than ever. The Poached Egg exists to equip Christians to meet those challenges and be more confident in their faith and become more effective witnesses for Christ. If you find these articles and posts useful, please consider partnering with me in 2018 to continue this work that God has laid on my heart. As someone once said, the Gospel is free, but someone has to pay for the plumbing. You can become a monthly partner for just as little as $5 a month (that’s only $60 a year), the price of a gourmet cup of coffee. Special one time gifts are welcome and encouraged as well. Will you help?

02/21/2018

Rethinking Our Apologetics: Does Atheism Take More Faith?

By Carey Bryant

“You really believe that the universe came from nothing? How could you think that life arose from non-life? Well, I could never have as much faith as you do!”

This is a rhetoric that many apologists use when confronting atheists. The idea is that since the atheist lacks evidence for his position, he needs more faith to make up the difference. But I think this portrays faith in a confusing and unhelpful way for three reasons.

1. This rhetoric reinforces the false view that faith is believing something without evidence.

The true definition of faith has been so abused that now the larger culture sees faith as believing something without having any evidence for it. This means the more faith you have, the less evidence you have for your position. If this is what faith means, then as Christians we don’t need as much faith as the atheist because we have more evidence!

But I don’t think this is how the Bible defines faith.

The clearest definition comes from Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” There are several Greek words used here:

Faith (pistis)= to be convicted that something is true

Assurance (hypostasis)= a firm trust or foundation

Hoped for (elpizō) = to confide in or expect

Conviction (elegchos) = proof or evidence

As you can see, none of these words indicate that faith is believing without evidence. According to Hebrews 11:1, faith is a confident trust, assurance and conviction that something is true…

Christians today are facing more challenges than ever. The Poached Egg exists to equip Christians to meet those challenges and be more confident in their faith and become more effective witnesses for Christ. If you find these articles and posts useful, please consider partnering with me in 2018 to continue this work that God has laid on my heart. As someone once said, the Gospel is free, but someone has to pay for the plumbing. You can become a monthly partner for just as little as $5 a month (that’s only $60 a year), the price of a gourmet cup of coffee. Special one time gifts are welcome and encouraged as well. Will you help?

02/19/2018

The Bible’s Impact on History and the Urge to Erase It

Responding to the myth that the Bible has nothing to do with the West

By Misty Callahan

“Ignorance and unbelief are understandable, but distorting one’s own history is a costly bias.” Vishal Mangalwadi warns in his publication, “The Book That Made Your World”. Yet a distortion of our own history is exactly what we’re seeing in many academic circles and within some spheres of popular culture. The mythical mantra that “the Bible had nothing to do with Western Civilization” is one that is being touted quite often these days. The only way that we can combat this misinformation is with the truth: the Bible is part of the foundation of the West, like it or not.

Clouding The Lens Of History

When I was a little girl, I watched the film, “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark”, and began to imagine myself as a “girl Indiana Jones”: exploring ancient temples, finding treasure and chasing evil doers with a whip. As I grew, I relegated my love for the past to a much beloved hobby. Yet, my passion for history has never waned.

The older I get, the more I realize that the study of history is extremely important to understand the present. Clouding the lens through which we view history can be risky. If we allow our perceptions of history to be shaped by incomplete or misrepresentations of historical facts, how will we be able to see clearly through the chaos of our present day?

I recently watched a video on YouTube where a speaker (who will remain nameless, because I do not wish to embarrass him), stood in front of a class of college students and stated…

Christians today are facing more challenges than ever. The Poached Egg exists to equip Christians to meet those challenges and be more confident in their faith and become more effective witnesses for Christ. If you find these articles and posts useful, please consider partnering with me in 2018 to continue this work that God has laid on my heart. As someone once said, the Gospel is free, but someone has to pay for the plumbing. You can become a monthly partner for just as little as $5 a month (that’s only $60 a year), the price of a gourmet cup of coffee. Special one time gifts are welcome and encouraged as well. Will you help?

02/15/2018

Stop Making Speeches and Start Asking Questions

by Nate Sala

Remember the day before a test at school? If you’re like me, you spent that evening cramming as much knowledge as you possibly could into your mind in the hopes that most (if not all) of it would somehow stay there until morning. The next day you walk into class, but you’ve loaded so much information and expectations onto your shoulders that you’re incredibly anxious and there’s a sinking feeling in your gut.

This is how a lot of us feel when sharing our faith with our friends and neighbors. We approach them like we’re taking a test. Sometimes we remember everything we planned to say. Sometimes we stutter and stumble and start and stop our way through long-winded speeches. On top of that, halfway through our speech these folks clam up, fold their arms, and shut down.

Friends, there is a better way to reach the people in our lives for Christ! Instead of memorizing long speeches that culminate with the sinner’s prayer, just ask questions. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not suggesting we remain unstudied when it comes to the Gospel (or theology or apologetics). I’m also not advocating to ask any old random question. Rather, we should ask the right questions at the right time to lead someone to confront the consequences of their beliefs. It is this very act of asking the right questions that tests and tills the soil of a person’s heart to receive the Gospel (by the power of the Holy Spirit).

Here are two good reasons to use questions in your evangelism and apologetics…

Christians today are facing more challenges than ever. The Poached Egg exists to equip Christians to meet those challenges and be more confident in their faith and become more effective witnesses for Christ. If you find these articles and posts useful, please consider partnering with me in 2018 to continue this work that God has laid on my heart. As someone once said, the Gospel is free, but someone has to pay for the plumbing. You can become a monthly partner for just as little as $5 a month (that’s only $60 a year), the price of a gourmet cup of coffee. Special one time gifts are welcome and encouraged as well. Will you help?

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

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For we did not follow cleverly contrived myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; instead, we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. 2 Peter 1:16